For Williams, a release in playing Marilyn Monroe

In this Oct. 23, 2011 photo, actress Michelle Williams poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. Williams stars as Marilyn Monroe in the film "My Week with Marilyn" which will be released in theaters Nov. 23. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)
— AP

In this Oct. 23, 2011 photo, actress Michelle Williams poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. Williams stars as Marilyn Monroe in the film "My Week with Marilyn" which will be released in theaters Nov. 23. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)
/ AP

Williams was born in a small town in northwest Montana. Though her family moved to San Diego when she was 9, Williams believes Montana "formed me in some fundamental way" and that, although she lives in a townhouse in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, she "will always feel most at home in nature."

In California, Williams became interested in acting after she and her sister performed in community plays. In a nice touch of foreshadowing, she kept a poster of Monroe on her bedroom wall. As Williams' young acting career grew in TV and movies, she emancipated from her parents at age 15. Two years later, she was cast in "Dawson's Creek," the WB teen drama that ran for six seasons and catapulted Williams' fame.

Williams' film career took off with 2005's "Brokeback Mountain." She received her first Oscar nomination (a second would come for "Blue Valentine") for her performance as the rejected wife of Ledger's cowboy.

She's since drawn the interest of directors like Martin Scorsese ("Shutter Island") and Wim Wenders ("Land of Plenty"), but perhaps been most comfortable in independent films ("Synecdoche, New York," "I'm Not There").

She's twice worked with filmmaker Kelly Reichardt in low-budget films notable for their realism: 2008's "Wendy and Lucy," a film about a woman living in poverty with just her dog and a beat-up car, and this year's "Meek's Cutoff," a gritty depiction of life on the Oregon Trail in 1845. Williams slept in her character's car for "Wendy and Lucy," and learned how to drive oxen for "Meek's Cutoff."

"She really likes the chance to hide and just be able to be a person," says Reichardt. "These films have sort of offered her a chance to work while just being able to blend into the world in a way that becomes probably more difficult."

Reichardt said Williams has been sending her iPhone photos of the craft service table from her current film - Sam Raimi's "Wizard of Oz" prequel, "Oz: The Great and Powerful," in which Williams plays Glinda the Good Witch - exclaiming, "We could make a whole movie with this!"

Williams says she's long had an interest "in naturalism, in no shine on anything, no polish, no veneer.."

"What I've hoped for is to have as little separation between the character that I'm playing and the people in the audience - nothing that made the character feel out of reach," the actress says. "'Wendy and Lucy' was, I don't know if it was the culmination, but definitely that was what I was ultimately aiming for."

Whereas she rolled out of bed for "Wendy and Lucy," "My Week With Marilyn" required three hours of hair and makeup every morning.

"In the film, there's a sort of contrast between the American interior, psychological way of working, and the English external, theatrical way of working," says director Simon Curtis. "But in fact, Michelle came at the character of Marilyn in both directions."

Asked when it was that she realized she wanted to act, Williams says, "That's a decision that I make again and again and again." She lists a series of "mile-marker moments": doing her first English accent, finding camaraderie on the set of "Station Agent," making "Wendy and Lucy," working with Gosling.